Mazda Rx 7

There was nothing else like it on the road – and there still isn't

Mazda demonstrated to the world a rotary could stay the distance.

Battered but still pretty, a high-mile example of a late-first-generation Mazda RX-7, spotted in a California wrecking yard.

The stunning Mazda RX-Vision Concept appears to be just a tease.

Jay Leno's Garage focuses on a '66 Bug with the heart of a 1990 Mazda RX-7.

One of the most enjoyable 100-horsepower cars ever made, but now destined to re-enter the scrap-metal food chain.

The rotary sportscar you want probably isn't coming any time soon, but it's in Mazda's interest to lead you on.

MotorWeek explores the breadth of Japanese cars in the '90s with video reviews of a tuned Mazda RX-7 and Nissan 300ZX and a clip about the 1997 Honda CR-V.

Mazda's drivetrain and powertrain assistant manager wants the company's revived rotary engine to be turbocharged.

Mazda isn't ready to give up on bringing the Wankel back and still has a team working to bring the design up to modern emissions and economy standards. A model using the updated mill isn't currently on the horizon, though.

Evo's Richard Meaden hops into a racing-winning, first-generation RX-7 and shows why these coupes are an important part of Mazda's performance legacy. They sound great, too.

A quartet of RC drift machines hang their tails out together around this scale model world. Thanks to some skilled camera work, it almost looks real.

Autocar is the latest with another rumor about a Mazda RX-7 revival, saying Mazda is planning something "significant" for its 100th anniversary in 2020. Reading between the vague lines, however, we wouldn't get our hopes up.

Some rumors in the auto industry simply refuse to die. Over the last decade, a few of the strongest have focused on Japan. A few years ago, we could have explained away the constant whispering over a new Toyota Supra, Acura NSX or Mazda RX-7 as nostalgia for Japan's golden era of performance. Today, though is different.

Oh, the heady days of 1993, back when the Clinton Presidency was just getting underway, and it seemed like every hot new rock band was coming out of Seattle. Sports cars in the US had finally shaken off the shackles that slowed them during the '70s and '80s, and you could buy any number of legitimately quick vehicles again. MotorWeek recently went digging into its archives to find this six-model test from 1993 showing off some of the best semi-affordable performance coupes that money co

We have some very sad news to report, rotor-heads fans: Don't expect a new rotary-powered vehicle anytime soon. This comes straight from Masamichi Kogai, the CEO of Mazda, which is the only company to ever market a commercially successful rotary-powered automobile in the world. The issue, as it has pretty much always been, is environmental.

What do you get when you mix YouTube and Ketzal Sterling of the High Octane DVD series? Another web-video series about high-performance cars with a motorsport twist and juvenile humor. Redline is the newest show by Sterling, and the man devised an epic shootout of seven seriously quick race machines for the first episode.

For the first time ever, the Crown Range, New Zealand's highest paved road, was closed off for the drifting pleasure of one man. That man is Mad Mike Whiddett, and the machine he's piloting is a heavily modified Mazda RX-7 sponsored by the energy-rich crew from Red Bull and powered by a 750-horsepower quad-rotor engine. There will be smoke. Lots and lots of smoke.

There is a special place in our hearts reserved for the Mazda RX-7. Its screaming rotary engine made the '80s and '90s a time of high-revving fun. While Mazda continued the rotary with the four-door RX-8, the two are not the same car, and eventually the latter was phased out.